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After three years of intense focus on therapy and personal growth, I'm finally hitting the keys again and will be jumping into NaNoWriMo on November 1st, 2016. Stay tuned for updates!

Wednesday, 2 January 2013

RANTS & RAMBLES: Les Miserables (The Movie)

For
those who may not know, Les Miserables
is my favourite musical of all time! I
have been looking forward to the release of this movie since it was announced
and did a happy dance for at least 10 minutes when I read the synopsis of the
project. This being my first published “Rants & Rambles” (yes, I have more
partially written, but not completed), I thought it appropriate that it should
be on the film version of Les Miserables
which opened on Christmas Day 2012 (what more could a girl ask for on
Christmas?!).

Being a
purest of the show and extreme fan, my excitement for the epic film version was
tempered by my fear of it being put through the Hollywood washing machine and
cleaned of all meaning and significance.
Despite this, I knew that there must be some tweaks and touches to adapt
the show to the new format. As a writer,
I am pretty reasonable when it comes to making changes to the story so it is clearer
to the audience, so I was prepared to accept some minor alterations for the
benefit of storytelling, but that is it.
With that, here we go...

THERE
ARE LIKELY A LOT OF SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH THE STORY

My
thoughts before the movie (and from watching trailers):

- Hugh
Jackman as Valjean = YAY

-
Russell Crowe as Javert = Oh no! He
cannot sing, but I’m not a huge Javert fan anyway and at least he is kind of
pretty.

- Anne
Hathaway as Fantine = I don’t like her, but at least Fantine dies early; also,
can she sing?

- Sacha
Baron Cohen as Thenardier = Yay!

- Helena
Bonham Carter as Mme. Thenardier = I don’t like her

- Amanda
Seyfried as Cosette = I don’t like her, but she can sing and I don’t usually
care for Cosette anyway!

- Rest
of the cast seem like they are from music theatre, so thank goodness for some
common sense!

So,
knowing this, here is my rant:

To
start: I saw the movie twice on opening
day. The first time I arrived late and
was forced to sit in the front row. The
second time, I was in the back row. I don’t
know why people don’t sit in the very back more often. You can actually see the entire screen and
the sound is incredible (which was sorely lacking in the front row). It is also usually less crowded. All in all, a win-win.

The
Movie (in elongated point form):

- Title
screens throughout are a nice touch to keep audience on same page! Nicely done!

- The
cinematography is beautiful but is extremely overdramatic at many points
through the film. This is one of my
biggest issues. I Dreamed A Dream is beautiful, powerful and engaging but most
importantly: it is simply filmed. The
story is powerful enough and the dramatic shots and extreme close-ups for
effect are distracting and annoying.
Also, the spinning camera while singing starts to make you nauseous after
a while. The beauty of simplicity is
lost at many points in the film.

- Prologue/Look Down was SLOW!!! I haven’t a clue why they slowed it down,
especially because it is the first song of the show. It was like pulling teeth to get to the next
line.

- Poor
Russell Crowe! From the very moment he
opens his mouth, you feel sorry for him. *sad face*

- The
new lyrics or lyric changes that they made to adapt to screen are poor at
best. They don’t fit with the musicality
of the show and stick out like a sore thumb.
Also, the rhyming scheme for many of them is terrible!!! I cringed every time. I get that some lyrics needed to be tweaked to
make it fit the story of the film, but seriously, they had extra music to work
with; why not tweak what already exists?!

- A very
nice moment is when Javert has Valjean collect the flag. Beautifully establishes Valjean’s freakish
strength and has some nice symbolism: Javert respects the country he serves by
commanding that the flag not be left behind and Valjean shows that in his toil,
he carries the country on his back.

-
COLM!!!! YAY!!!! Thank you from all the devotees!!!! Though, not used to the best of his
ability. Actually, I take that
back. I just want to hear a nice belt
from him and was hoping they would vamp up the Bishop’s role and let him belt
some of the notes. Alas, Colm is
probably too much of purest as well to go for that...

- Not a
fan of the change from “bought soul for God” to “saved soul for God”. I get that the concept of buying a soul is
probably not PC, but still. It’s the
idea is that Valjean can take the silver if he is willing to change his
ways. Valjean makes the choice to save
his own soul, not the Bishop. Fail!

- Oh
Hugh!!! So much love! What
Have I Done is lovely and beautifully performed. I was worried about the exent of Hugh’s range
because Valjean is a hard role to sing, but he does an admirable job. This song is one of his best in the
film.

-
Beautiful transition to At the End of the
Day. This is an example of how the
whole film should have gone. There is
enough song and incidental music in the show, that there should have been
constant music throughout. The spaces
between the music suck the life out and it is one of the major weaknesses of
the film.

- Hate
the actors looking directly into the camera while singing. It was used to often and at weird times. So awkward.
Factory Scene is the worst for it.
Creepy (and not in the good way)!!!!!

- Anne
Hathaway is brilliant! (Note: I was very pessimistic about her going in, so
this should hold much more weight!) Only
thing, the word “childhood” in I Dreamed
a Dream was really weird (but that’s me being nit-picky).

- My
heart bleeds for Russell in his duets with Hugh. You can tell that Hugh is trying to not
oversing and make Russell look bad, but it is painful to watch. Crowe is so out of his depth in this
cast. Everyone else brings their ‘A’
game (with the exception of Bonham Carter, but we’ll get there) and he is so piteously
terrible.

- The
candlesticks are a nice image that is carried through

- Who Am I? is good but Hugh speaks the
final “Jean Valjean” which is disappointing. “24601” is great!

- Great
casting on the Cosettes!

- Nice
visual into to the Young Cosette

-
Russell is not terrible in The
Confrontation

- Helena
Bonham Carter is terrible. She cannot
sing Mme. Thenardier which is sad because the role is relatively easy to
sing. She also sucks all the comedy out
of the part. Please stop putting her in
musicals!

- Master of the House was poorly
done. This should be the one relief that
the audience has from the pain and struggle of the rest of the characters and
it was slow. It failed to add the energy
to the story like it should.

- The
lines added for Valjean and Cosette in the woods are creepy and poorly
written. A man approaching a child in
the woods and asking her to show him where she lives is weird. There were so many lines cut or changed (my
feeling is to make it more PC) and they choose to add these awkward lines. In all my viewings, this has always received
a laugh from the audience (and there should not be a laugh at this point).

- Sacha
Baron Cohen is extremely entertaining to watch and plays the role of Thenardier
nicely. He can’t sing terribly well, but
pulls it off with his charming performance.
I wish the same could be said for his partner.

- The
additional “Oscar” song is TERRIBLE!!!!
It sticks out like a sore thumb and doesn’t have any of the musicality
or beauty of the rest of the score. It
is very simple and extremely unnecessary.
I wish that they would stop compromising the art of the piece in order
to accommodate awards category requirements.

- Gavroche
is cute but misused. They cut Little People which is what endears him
to the audience and his death is unsympathetic.
Instead of sneaking around to collect ammunition, he is blatantly
dancing in the face of the French army, no wonder he gets shot!

-
Enjolras and Marius are lovely. Both
sing the parts extremely well!

- I don’t
like the cuts they made and I don’t like the additions. Bah humbug!

- Amanda
Seyfried is lovely as Cosette and sings like a canary. I don’t normally like the Marius and Cosette
storyline, but Eddie Redmayne and Seyfried make them enjoyable and sweet. I actually found that I liked them as
characters, which is new. YAY!

- I’m
unsure about my feelings about the change in events, aka having Gavroche
deliver Marius’ letter to Cosette and putting On My Own before One Day More. I feel like it was unnecessary and didn’t
really add anything to the plot. It felt
like a change for the sake of a change.

-
Eponine binding her breasts in One Day
More is again unnecessary. It seems
like it was a way to add something “sexy” into the filming. It could have been accomplished by simple
showing her dressing as a boy. I feel
like the entire film fell short on the Eponine story. Very sad!

- They
cut all the battle music!!! WHAT?! The battle music is, again, a point where
some energy is infused into the score, but it was replaced by other
underscoring which was not nearly as powerful.
Balls!

- Also,
they changed Valjean’s address... why?
Again, something that seems to be changed for no real purpose.

- Drink With Me was cut down to the
reprise. Such a beautiful moment that
actually makes the audience sympathize with the revolutionaries and therefore
makes their slaughter in the morning more powerful. As it stood, the slaughter of the students
was too fast and had less effect than it should have.

-
Valjean’s last moment with Marius is Bring
Him Home was weird.

- The
coffin imagery at the barricade was a little over the head. It could be slightly more subtle.

-
Enjolras’ death was nice; though Grantaire didn’t really need to be there.

- The
streets running with blood was nice, as was the homage to Turning, but the entire battle, barricades and rebellion seemed so
small that I questioned if it would have left that much blood. The battles needed to be more epic. It seemed like it was just 15 boys on one
street.

- The sewers
were nice but I did miss Dog Eat Dog.

- Javert’s Suicide was painful. Also, having him crack off the corner of the
falls was comical. Not really the intention
of that scene, but I guess when you haven’t cared for the character, you need
to add something in for effect.

- Too
many extreme close-ups and hand held cameras!!!! I was nauseous by the end of the film.

- Why is
the doctor singing in Everyday
Medley?

- Not a
fan of the change in lines when Valjean hands Cosette his final confession.

- Love
the reappearance of Colm at the end!

-
Beautiful last moment on the barricade!

All in
all, I would have to say that I enjoyed the film. It had some wonderful performances and if you
are not obsessed with the show, as I am, you probably didn’t notice all the
things that drove me nuts. Mostly, I
appreciate the attention the film is getting which will encourage a new breed
of potential theatre goers!

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Welcome to Art Thief!

After a few failed attempts at creating "themed story" blogs, I have been inspired to create a blog with the true intention of the format: a simple web log of my inspirations as a writer and artist.

This blog is dedicated to Austin Kleon, whose book Steal Like an Artist, has been my primary inspiration.

In this book, Kleon discusses how all art is stolen in some way and a good artist knows what is worth stealing. As artists, we cannot fool ourselves into thinking that everything we create is original. We all draw our inspiration from many sources and we steal little gems from each one to develop our own body of work. Kleon's book outlines simple practices to ensure that you keep your art alive; one being: SHARE YOUR WORK.

Thief Profile

Good thieves never reveal their identity... although, good thieves don't likely advertise their plunders to the rest of the world either.

Art Thief, aka AJ, keeps her home in Toronto, Canada; though work often pulls her to every corner of the globe.

AJ is a writer and teacher disguised as a mild mannered stage manager. She loves working in theatre and being able to surround herself with some of the best artists in the industry (while plotting to take over the world with her own work). As a stage manager, AJ is constantly immersed in all forms of art. Talk about inspiration overload! The number of stories and characters that fill each day is more than any writer could ask. The goal now: keep up!

AJ is working on a lot of projects in 2013, including: the first full length run of her play, Empty Boxes; and the launch of Homestead Theatre Project. Stay tuned in the Happenings section of this blog for details.